As a follow up to Monday’s blog on the US labour market – Cutting US unemployment benefits is cruel and stupid – this short blog considers the latest flows in the US to provide a fuller understanding of why it is madness to even contemplate undermining aggregate demand overall (by cutting unemployment benefits). The flows data shows that the labour market is still in recovery, albeit a very tepid recovery, and the chance of a reversal in fortunes is very high, should aggregate demand falter. The US labour market is a long way from full employment (as I demonstrated on Monday) and the underlying dynamics of the labour market which this blog is about show that it is also not very vital at present. Taken together only a stupid person would think it was sensible to deny benefits to the long-term unemployed. Their stupidity is only topped by the intensity of their socio-pathic tendencies.